Google Offers Interactive Plots – Unemployment & Population

April 30th, 2009 by andum | Posted in Economy, Uncategorized

google-unemployment-plot
In the ongoing attempt by Google to provide access to all of the world’s information, Google has introduced a new search feature. Google will now return interactive charts of unemployment rates and population using US government data. You can access these charts entering ‘unemployment rate’ or ‘population’, followed by US, a state or a county. The above image shows the unemployment rates for the US and two counties. I lived in Duval county in the 1990s when unemployment was very low – I am surprised that the unemployment rate now exceeds the US average rate. I also lived in Roanoke county in the early 2000s. Roanoke county was known for it’s stable economy. The graphic shows that the recession has likely spared very few communities in the US.

Although one has to be concerned about Google’s virtual monoply on search, tools such as providing access to government data can only be seen positively. I have spent some time looking at government data and soon realized that I could spend hours trying to generate simple charts. Google promises that this access to unemployment rates and population figuress is just the beginning to providing more access to government data.

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Snowballing Your Debt Into Oblivion

By Matt on October 11, 2008

If you’re like me, at one point in your life, you’ve found yourself in more debt than you could reasonably handle. One of the most popular strategies for getting out of this mess is consulting with a debt consolidation company. While this is not always necessarily a bad idea, it will negatively affect your credit score for a time, and it won’t always fix your problems in the long-term. A better solution is often to apply a technique called snowballing. In the past year, I’ve managed to pay off 3 bills that have been plaguing me for years using this technique. And I haven’t had to change my lifestyle to do it! Here is how I’ve applied the technique:

Arrange your bills in order from highest to lowest interest rate
Look at the top 3 bills and choose the one with the lowest balance
Now focus all your efforts (and excess money) on paying this bill off until it has been paid in full
Rinse and Repeat, taking your old monthly payment you were applying to the previous bill, and applying it to the next bill

Posted in Debt Management | Tagged bills, credit, credit card, credit score, debt, debt consolidation, snowballing | 2 Responses

How to Build a Blog for Residual Income – Part 1

By Matt on October 19, 2008

G’day, folks! Today, I’m going to begin a series of posts centered around setting up a blog for bringing in some residual income. I’ll begin by answering the question of why one would want to go through the trouble of doing this… residual income offers us the promise of a maximum return on our investment. In this case, our investment is our time, and our return is financial freedom! This isn’t a foreign concept–most of us are used to the idea of getting paid for our time. The only problem is, many of us are spending 60 hours per week or more working for a fixed income. Residual income gives us a better way–it gives us a way to make money while we do nothing! Sure, you have to do some work up-front… but once that work is done, you can sit back and watch the money roll in. For more information on this topic, I’d suggest reading The 4-Hour Workweek. It’s really a great read! (I do receive a small amount of affiliate income from purchases made through this site, but I will NOT promote products that I do not believe are quality and worthwhile). This book covers the essentials of what residual income is all about and how to attain financial freedom in today’s economy. If you don’t trust my recommendation, check out this thorough review of The 4-Hour Workweek from one of my favorite blogs, Get Rich Slowly. Decide for yourself. Once you’re convinced it’s worth your time to pursue one or more avenues of residual income (you’re probably already pursuing some of them, i.e. investing in the stock market, interest earned through your savings account, etc.), come back to my blog and check out Part 2 of this post, where I’ll begin to explain how you can set up your own blog and get paid a residual income for simply expressing your own opinions on a subject of your choosing. Thanks for reading!

Posted in Blogging, Link Love | Tagged 4-hour workweek, blog, Blogging, financial freedom, get rich slowly, Make Money, residual income | 5 Responses

How to Build a Blog for Residual Income – Part 2

By Matt on October 21, 2008

This is Part 2 of the series How to Build a Blog for Residual Income.

In Part 1 of this post, I explained why residual income is a worthy goal, and presented one of my favorite books, The 4-Hour Workweek, which goes to great lengths to explain different ways in which you can create a sustainable flow of residual income for yourself. In this post, I’ll begin the process of showing you how to create a blog for one of these channels of residual income. Please keep in mind that blogs offer only one possibility for residual income in your life, and that to be most effective, you should strive to create other channels of residual income for yourself. When you do this, even if each stream of income is only bringing in small amounts of money, when you add them all up, the results can be overwhelming!

For my blogs, I tend to use either Blogger or Wordpress, so my experience with other platforms is limited. For this series of articles, I’ll be focusing mostly on Wordpress, but may mention Blogger in passing if I feel I can contribute something important. Now, without further ado, here’s a rundown of some of the things I’m planning to discuss in this series of articles:

Posted in Blogging | Tagged 4-hour workweek, blog, blogger, Blogging, blogspot, financial freedom, get rich slowly, Make Money, residual income, wordpress | 2 Responses

Save Money — Ride a Motorcycle

By Matt on October 21, 2008

In a previous post, I mentioned one of my favorite blogs, Get Rich Slowly. There is always some good content there, and the author is at it again. Recently, he’s posted an article on saving money by riding a scooter. I really enjoyed this article and I think it’s a great idea. In fact, for the past two years, I’ve been riding motorcycles to and from work, as well as recreationally. While I can’t get rid of my car, since the winter months do not offer a very pleasant riding experience where I live, I do save quite a bit of money on gas by riding my motorcycle during the warmer months of the year. If you’ve got a thirst for adventure (and frugality), I’d urge you to do the math and determine whether riding a motorcycle is for you. There are several bikes out there that will get 50-70 mpg (some will do much better than even this). Whatever you do, remember: SAFETY FIRST. I won’t get on a motorcycle without, at the very least, wearing a helmet. Additional safety gear, such as padded jackets, boots, pants, and gloves are recommended.

Posted in Link Love, Save Money | Tagged frugal, gas money, get rich slowly, money, motorcycles, Save Money, scooters | Leave a response

Google Offers Interactive Plots – Unemployment & Population

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